Briefing

The future is bright—too bright—for life as we know it once the sun transforms into a red giant star

When tested on their own and in mice, these bacterial strains from the human microbiome show promise in accumulating PFAS

The June heat dome contributed to the deaths of at least three people. They have died as federal regulators have weighed whether to finalize the nation’s first heat protection rule for workers

Climate change left its signature on the atmosphere early in the industrial revolution, reveals a thought experiment investigation

Forest-based carbon-offset projects need a buffer to guarantee their climate benefits will last – but they may not have nearly enough in reserve

Rocky bodies called protoplanets were thought to have formed slightly earlier in the inner solar system than those beyond the asteroid belt, but now a meteorite from the outer solar system is rewriting that view

Working in tandem, a quantum computer and a supercomputer modelled the behaviour of several molecules, paving the way for useful applications in chemistry and pharmaceutical research

Not quite crystals and not quite a glass, quasicrystals are an oddity whose properties are not well understood – but now we know how they can remain stable

The growth of domestic solar installations opens the possibility of hackers targeting their smart inverter devices as a way to cause widespread power-system failures

Nature, Published online: 04 July 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02147-z

Eight scientists who appeared in Nature’s Changemaker series are to feature in a forthcoming podcast series. Kendall Powell and Deborah Daley introduce them.